KUALA LUMPUR, June 24 — New research from the Youth Sport Trust (YST) has shown that almost 70 per cent of parents did not know how much exercise is needed by their children to remain healthy.
Commissioned by YouGov for the YST, the survey asked 2,000 adults what they thought the recommended exercise time was for young people. Most either did not know or thought it was around 46 minutes.
The UK’s National Health Service provides guidance that state children aged five to eighteen should do an hour of exercise daily.
YST chief executive Ali Oliver said to The Guardian, “We’ve seen a worrying trend in recent years of a decline in young people’s physical activity, and a squeeze on time allocated to good quality physical education.”
Data from Sport England showed less than twenty percent of children meeting the recommended amount of exercise.
It also showed a disparity between children from different socioeconomic backgrounds. 4 out of 5 of children from poorer families did less than 30 minutes of exercise a day, compared to almost a third from those better off.
